A bill that would redefine rape was not meant to end federal funding allocations for women that sought to terminate pregnancies due to rape, a Democratic congressman said recently.

“The language of HR 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so,” Rep. Daniel Lipinski of Illinois said in a statement to Talking Points Memo Saturday.

<snip>

However, that could all change if the bill’s language is not clarified. Instead of keeping the 30-year-old definition of rape in federal law, the bill would modify it to “forcible rape,” thereby severely limiting the health care choices of millions of American women and their families.

In other words, rape would not be rape unless violence were involved; but the term “forcible rape” was left undefined, leading some to speculate its meaning since it is also not defined in the federal criminal code or in some state laws.

The bill largely co-sponsored by Republicans, if it becomes law, would also disallow parents of minors from paying for pregnancy termination for their daughters with tax-exempt health savings accounts. Also, the cost of the private health insurance that covered the treatment would not be able to be deducted as a medical expense for tax purposes.

The Kochs should know that the people are on to their attempts to pervert the American political process and destroy our great nation.

People are waking up to the fact that we are a democracy and that we want politicians who represent the interests of the people not the greedy thieving rich elite scum that control the corporations and Wall Street.

Twenty-five protesters were arrested in Rancho Mirage, California today, at a protest in front of the Rancho Las Palmas resort, site of the “Billionaire’s Caucus,” an annual meeting put on by the Koch Brothers and other corporate entities and conservative movement operators.

Riverside Sheriff’s deputy Melissa Nieburger said that the sheriff’s department did have contacts with protest organizers, which included the California Courage Campaign, CREDO, MoveOn.org, 350.org, the California Nurses Association, United Domestic Workers of America and the main sponsor, the good-government group Common Cause, prior to the event, and that they were aware that some protesters would seek to be arrested for trespassing. She would not guarantee that all 25 who were arrested were part of that coordinated operation. The police, who wore riot gear, batons and helmets, did put the arrested into plastic handcuffs. Nieburger described them as “passive restraints.” They were being processed at press time, and Nieburger would not say whether they would be released or would spend the night at the jail in Indio.

Nieburger estimated between 800 and 1,000 activists at the “Uncloak the Kochs” event. Event organizers chartered buses from several locations around Southern California and claimed 1,500 people signed up for those buses, on top of any local activists who attended. It appeared from the ground that well over 1,000 protesters were there.

While the sheriff’s deputy claimed no knowledge of who called out the Riverside County sheriffs and the Palm Springs police department to the proceedings, Common Cause was contacted by the sheriff to see what they were planning and coordinate appropriate resources. The city of Rancho Mirage contracts with the Riverside County sheriff’s department for their law enforcement needs.

The blimp was the work of Greenpeace, the environmentalist group that last year brought attention to the prominent role that Charles and David Koch, owners of Kansas-based oil company Koch Industries, play in efforts to discredit climate change theories.

The brothers, who jointly own the second-largest privately held company in the US, “are able to push their polluter agenda through tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions, lobbying, and funding fronts groups and think tanks,” Greenpeace said on its website.

The environmental group argued that Koch brothers meetings attract enough big conservative money for the meetings to be considered a de facto political movement in and of itself.

Analyzing the attendance list of an earlier Koch meeting in Aspen, Colorado, Greenpeace found that the participants had contributed more than $61 million to political campaigns since 1990 — a statistic that prompted the Guardian‘s Ed Pilkington to declare that the meetings’ attendees form “a major, though unofficial, bloc within American politics.”

Nicknamed “Jesus chicken” by jaded secular fans and embraced by Evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos. But recently its ethos has run smack into the gay rights movement. A Pennsylvania outlet’s sponsorship of a February marriage seminar by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality lit up gay blogs around the country. Students at some universities have also begun trying to get the chain removed from campuses.

<snip>

Because the company remains privately held — his two sons run it — it can easily keep its faith-based principles intact. The company’s corporate purpose is, in part, “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.”

With its near-national reach and its transparent conservative Christian underpinnings, Chick-fil-A is a trailblazer of sorts, said Lake Lambert, the author of “Spirituality, Inc.” and dean of the college of liberal arts at Mercer University, where he teaches Christianity.

“They’re going in a direction we haven’t seen in faith-based businesses before, and that is to a much broader marketing of themselves and their products,” he said. “This is possibly the next phase of evangelical Christianity’s muscle flexing.”

The company’s Christian culture and its strict hiring practices, which require potential operators to discuss their marital status and civic and church involvement, have attracted controversy before, including a 2002 lawsuit brought by a Muslim restaurant owner in Houston who said he was fired because he did not pray to Jesus with other employees at a training session. The suit was settled.

The sandwiches that will feed people who attend a February seminar, called “The Art of Marriage: Getting to the Heart of God’s Design,” in Harrisburg, Pa., are but a tiny donation.

Over the years, the company’s operators, its WinShape Foundation and the Cathy family have given millions of dollars to a variety of causes and programs, including scholarships that require a pledge to follow Christian values, a string of Christian-based foster homes and groups working to defeat same-sex marriage initiatives.

A variety of complaints against the Atlanta-based company coalesced this month. There was the decision by a Chick-fil-A operator in Pennsylvania to supply food to an event sponsored by the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which has worked to defeat gay marriage initiatives and has become a lightning rod for gay rights groups. There was a blogger’s contention that Chick-fil-A’s WinShape Foundation does not admit gay couples to marriage counseling.

For some gay activists, these are just more reasons to avoid the company’s chicken sandwiches and conservative ways.

“Chick-fil-A can sponsor who they want. It’s a free country,” said Will Kohler, administrator of a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender blog called back2stonewall.com. “But they shouldn’t get upset when they get found out supporting issues and ideas that discriminate against a section of their customers.”

Israel Shaken as Turbulence Rocks an Ally

JERUSALEM — The street revolt in Egypt has thrown the Israeli government and military into turmoil, with top officials closeted in round-the-clock strategy sessions aimed at rethinking their most significant regional relationship.

Israel’s military planning relies on peace with Egypt; nearly half the natural gas it uses is imported from Egypt; and the principle of trading conquered land for diplomatic ties began with its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt more than with any other foreign leader, except President Obama. If Mr. Mubarak were driven from power, the effect on Israel could be profound.

“For the United States, Egypt is the keystone of its Middle East policy,” a senior official said. “For Israel, it’s the whole arch.”

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because Mr. Netanyahu has ordered his ministers and their officials to stay publicly silent on Egypt while events there play out.

US, Europe fear Arab revolt ‘contagion’: analysts

PARIS — The United States and Europe are raising pressure for democratic reform in Egypt but face a tricky task amid fears that the violent unrest there could spread far beyond its borders, analysts say.

The United States on Sunday raised pressure on Egypt’s long-time President Hosni Mubarak, its closest ally in the Arab world, to make reforms. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for an “orderly transition” to democracy.

Denis Bauchard of the French International Relations Institute (IFRI) said US President “Barack Obama has taken the lead, calling for political reform, without sparing Mubarak, and that’s quite smart.”

Clinton went further on Sunday, saying that Mubarak’s move to name his first ever vice-president and a new premier was not nearly enough to answer the concerns of his people.

“We’re trying to promote an orderly transition and change that will respond to the legitimate grievances of the Egyptian people which the protests are all about,” Clinton told CBS television news.

Egypt protests draw mixed reaction in region

By the CNN Wire Staff

January 29, 2011

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Saudi Arabia slammed protesters in Egypt on Saturday as “infiltrators” who seek to destabilize their country, while a a top Palestinian official affirmed “solidarity” with Egypt.

An official in Iran called on Egypt to “abide by the rightful demands of the nation” and avoid violent reactions.

And in Israel, a member of the Knesset, or parliament, described a recent conversation with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that suggested that Mubarak had been expecting — and preparing for — the wave of unrest that has engulfed Egypt, the most populous Arab nation.

Leaders across the Middle East were following events in Egypt with rapt attention Saturday, aided in that endeavor by saturation coverage on Arabic television networks such as Al-Jazeera. Many are on edge after protests in Algeria, Jordan and Yemen following unrest in Tunisia that forced that country’s president from office after two decades in power.

In Saudi Arabia, the turmoil in Egypt rattled investors as the nation’s stock market lost over 6% of its value Saturday.

US calls for ‘orderly transition’

International reaction to the ongoing protests in Egypt has been mixed, with Barack Obama, the US president, voicing support for an “orderly transition” in Egypt in phone calls with foreign leaders.

Obama spoke by phone on Saturday with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkish prime minister and Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. He also spoke to David Cameron, British prime minister, on Sunday.

“During his calls, the president reiterated his focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly, association, and speech; and supporting an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people,” the White House said.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Rosalind Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said that Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, would “not favour any transition to a new government where oppression … would take root.”

It’s unclear if that includes if such a government would, in the US’s view, include the Muslim Brotherhood party.

Jordan noted that in making the rounds on Sunday television shows, Clinton sidestepped the question of whether Mubarak would be given asylum in the US or in another allied country.Clinton also pressed Mubarak to ensure that the coming elections are free and fair and to live up to his promises of reform but insisted Egypt must avoid a result like that of Iran, which she called a “faux democracy.”

Egypt condemned for blocking media

January 31, 2011

International press institutes have come out strongly against Egyptian authorities’ suppression of the media, following the withdrawal of Al Jazeera’s license to broadcast from the North African country.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned on Sunday the information ministry’s move to shutdown Al Jazeera’s bureau in the country.

The CPJ described the move as an attempt to “disrupt media coverage by Al Jazeera and calls on them to reverse the decision immediately”.

The official Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported that the order was to take effect on Sunday, and transmissions originating from Egypt ceased within an hour of the announcement. Nilesat, the satellite transmission company owned by Egyptian radio and television stopped the transmission of Al Jazeera’s primary channel and others.

Reporters without borders added to the condemnation of Egyptian authorities attempt to quell the media.

“By banning Al Jazeera, the government is trying to limit the circulation of TV footage of the six-day-old wave of protests,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Jean-François Julliard said.

Unrest in Egypt Unsettles Global Markets

On Wall Street, it is what is known as an exogenous event — a sudden political or economic jolt that cannot be predicted or modeled but sends shockwaves rippling through global markets.

Investors have largely shrugged off several of these unexpected developments recently, including the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, but the situation in Egypt has the potential to cause more widespread uncertainty, especially if oil and other commodities keep surging or the unrest spreads to more countries in the Middle East.

While Egypt’s banks and stock market were closed because of the protests there, other Middle Eastern markets declined in trading Sunday, with shares falling by 4.3 percent in Dubai, 3.7 percent in Abu Dhabi and 2.9 percent in Qatar.

By early Monday morning, Asian markets were also trending lower, with Japan’s Nikkei index falling 1.5 percent, while in South Korea, the Kospi index slid 1.4 percent.

Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average nearly surpassed the closely watched 12,000 level, but fell 166 points in late trading Friday as the protests in Egypt intensified and oil prices jumped 3.7 percent to $89.34.

With the United States economy seeming to gain a foothold only recently — government data released Friday showed the economy grew by 3.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 — a sustained increase in oil prices could choke growth, analysts said. It could also undermine the more general optimism that lifted the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index by 1.5 percent in January, after a 12.8 percent jump in 2010.

Dr. Eleanor Galenson, a psychoanalyst whose research demonstrated that children are aware of sexual identity in infancy, even earlier than Freud had propounded, died on Jan. 15 at her home in Manhattan. She was 94.

In 1981, with Dr. Herman Roiphe, she published “Infantile Origins of Sexual Identity.” Considered a significant book in the field, it refined existing Freudian theory about when children begin their sexual development. Dr. Roiphe died in 2005.

Freud postulated that awareness of genital difference does not affect children until the Oedipal stage — around 4 to 5 years old — when boys become competitive with their fathers for their mothers’ attention and girls turn more toward their fathers.

But Freud’s writing on psychosexual development was based on work with adult patients, said Dr. Nellie Thompson, a historian of psychoanalysis.

“What Galenson and Roiphe were doing was observing very young children in the nursery over time,” Dr. Thompson said. “They concluded that children make the discovery of genital difference between the ages of 15 to 19 months, and that this has an impact on their play, their relationship with their own bodies, their relationship with their parents.”

Dr. Galenson and Dr. Roiphe wrote in the book that as their research proceeded “we became increasingly convinced that we had been engaged in tracing the development of the sense of sexual identity from its vague beginnings during the earliest weeks and months to a definite conscious awareness of specific gender and genital erotic feelings and fantasies by the end of the second year.

The Hungry Ghosts are probably the most vividly drawn metaphors in the Wheel of Life. Phantomlike creatures with withered limbs, grossly bloated bellies, and long thin necks, the Hungry Ghosts in many ways represent a fusion of rage and desire. Tormented by unfulfilled cravings and insatiably demanding of impossible satisfactions, the Hungry Ghosts are searching for gratification for old unfulfilled needs whose time has passed. They are beings who have uncovered a terrible emptiness within themselves, who cannot see the impossibility of correcting something that has already happened. Their ghostlike state represents their attachment to the past.

I find myself thinking of the”hungry ghosts” metaphor every time I hear people say “GRS didn’t change my sex, I was always female.” Of course “sex change operation” is to coarsely vulgar and working class, cuts too close to reality, punctures too many fantasies to be acceptable as a description of what being born with and treated for transsexualiity actually involves. Even the the more medically correct description of what the operation is about, “sex reassignment surgery” cuts too close to the bone.

Hungry ghosts wear many different disguises.

Some make unsubstantiated claims to obscure intersex conditions, even though these conditions only seem to appear in middle age after the fathering of children. At the same time those who come out young with obvious physical traits suggesting the hormones associated with the sex assigned at birth do not function as expected, rarely show the obsessive interest in finding their true intersex nature.

Could it be that those who just accept their transsexuality for what it is and deal with it have a better outlook on life than those who flood the blogs and mailing lists with details of their biology that embarrasses even a potty mouthed old dyke like me? I suppose it could be that those of us who come out young have a more seamless way of approaching being born transsexual than those who up end their lives in middle age, and less need to rationalize the major turmoil changing sex can present in established adulthood. Perhaps having less guilt or shame permits us to both come out young and accept being who we are.

Today on a mailing list some one held up as evidence of their intersex condition their having a scar like line down the underside of their scrotum. They claimed this was “abnormal” and that normal men didn’t have this. Groan, I had the same basic reaction I had when I had to teach basic biology of sex to people who wanted SRS and had never actually seen a pussy. My first reaction to today’s gaffe was, “Obviously this person has never given a man, a blowjob.

The perineal raphe extends from the anus, through the mid-line of the scrotum (scrotal raphe) and upwards through the posterior mid-line aspect of the penis (penile raphe).

It is observed as a noticeable line.

It is the result of a fetal developmental phenomenon whereby the scrotum (the developmental equivalent of the labia in females) and penis close toward the midline and fuse.

The resulting ridge of tissue is evident as the perineal raphe.

Now I believe that transsexualism is in and of itself an intersex condition, one that probably has something to do with how hormones are processed. But why obsess on it? Aren’t there better things to do with your time like learn to play a musical instrument or down loading porn to masturbate with?

Then there is a separate gaggle of hungry ghosts. The ones who are more transsexual than all others who had the exact same sort of sex change operation everyone else had. Damn, their shit not only doesn’t stink but smells like designer perfume. They don’t have transsexualism like the common peasants, oh no, they have HBS or Harry Benjamin Syndrome.

But it is the same sort of hungry ghost eternally searching for something that makes them other than what they were born.

Now the “classic transsexuals” are sort of a variation on the theme. Their premise is that anyone who doesn’t fit their vary narrow definition of a real transsexual isn’t. Of course they may be the only person who fits that rigid definition. This is kind of amusing in a reality TV, mixed martial arts cage fighting sort of way, since there are a number of different personal definitions of what constitutes a “classic transsexual”. Considering photos I’ve seen of several of these people beauty is not one of the deciding factors, nor is being particularly feminine.

The main food hungry ghosts seem to be searching for is validation. Society is really short on external validation when it comes to validating the lives of people with transsexualism. Anyway if you lack internal validation then you will never be satisfied with the junk food of external validation.

The other thing hungry ghosts are often seeking is authenticity and authenticity cannot be found through identity or word games. Authenticity comes through action, accomplishments and living a life that is successful by your own standards.

The quest for authenticity leads us to the Transgender Borg.

While those post-transsexual women who embrace “HBS/Classic Transsexual” act as though they are the only true transsexuals, therefore tend to not even get along with each other. Those who embrace the “Transgender as Umbrella” are more like the Borg of Star Trek: the Next Generation.

When I lived in East Hollywood I was surrounded by Scientologists. Over the years Scientology had become like a cancer buying up real estate and thereby removing it from the tax rolls.

The weird thing about them was how much they resembled the Borg, another science fiction creation. They all had the exact same answers on almost any topic.

Dealing with the Transgender Borg is like that. Push the right buttons and their program spits out the exact same response.

Like the Borg, “Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.” Listen to our wisdom and hear us demean and abuse you if you do not agree to be assimilated.

Now some post-ops get sucked into this and become model Borg to those of us who go, “Piss of, we don’t want to be part of your freaking cult.”

Then the Transgender Borg say, “Well, we defined you as a subset of the TG Borg Collective, resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.

Now, Virginia Prince is to the Transgender Borg Collective what L. Ron Hubbard is to Scientology. That is to say the basis for much of the ideology although people have added to the dogma since.

Mostly the dogma of the Transgender Borg says you can be a woman though male as long as you claim to identify as female. It also says there isn’t any such thing as a sex change operation, only an inverted penis. Oh and, “Even though we have penises, we are real women and those who had SRS are not unless they stay part of the Transgender Borg Collective.”

The Transgender Borg demand that devotion to the collective be the central focus of the lives of those they have assimilated or marked for colonization. There too, the resemblance to the church of Scientology is remarkable.

There is actually a much saner path one can take if one is post-transsexual and that is to opt out of being a part of either group.

With very few exceptions I think people get sex reassignment surgery for pretty much the same reason. The screening procedures mostly work and stop people who are walking into disaster. Does this mean there aren’t people who fool the gate keepers? No a motivated person can scam their way into surgery. Samantha Kane is a prime example but there have been others. Were I on the civil jury I would find for the Doctors. Common sense should tell people that it is not hair and won’t grow back.

I don’t feel like I want to be a part of either faction.

I’d rather self-validate and get my strokes from friends. I’m secure enough in my own being to not want to run around proclaiming how I am the only real transsexual and I don’t want to be part of the Transgender Borg Collective.